KMC Forums - The Pershing incident, justified or not?

In the case of religious extremists of any faith, is it okay in your opinion, for the attacked group to fight back using religion against the extremists?
In the matter of retaliation, is it anything goes, or some lines must not be crossed?

Below is an example i've heard, having been in the Army, many times...

Once in US history an episode of Islamic terrorism was very quickly stopped. It happened in the Philippines about 1911, when Gen. John J. Pershing was in command of the garrison. There had been numerous Islamic terrorist attacks, so "Black Jack" told his boys to catch the perps and teach them a lesson.

Forced to dig their own graves, the terrorists were all tied to posts, execution style. The US soldiers then brought in pigs and slaughtered them, rubbing their bullets in the blood and fat. Thus, the terrorists were terrorized; they saw that they would be contaminated with hogs' blood. This would mean that they could not enter Heaven, even if they died as terrorist martyrs.

All but one was shot, their bodies dumped into the grave, and the hog guts dumped atop the bodies. The lone survivor was allowed to escape back to the terrorist camp and tell his brethren what happened to the others. This brought a stop to terrorism in the Philippines for the next 50 years.

Pointing a gun into the face of Islamic terrorists won't make them flinch. They welcome the chance to die for Allah. Like Gen. Pershing, we must show them that they won't get to Muslim heaven (which they believe has an endless supply of virgins) but instead will die with the hated pigs of the devil.

Its not an archaic concept either...

Nevertheless, the idea of subduing militant Muslims by threatening to bury them with pigs has held currency for many years. Just a few weeks before the September 11 terrorist attacks on America, Deputy Israeli police minister Gideon Esra suggested in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot that Palestinian suicide bombers be buried in pig skin or blood. In the 1939 film The Real Glory, Gary Cooper portrays Dr. Bill Canavan, an American Army doctor in 1906 Manila who "tries to protect the native population from ruthless invaders" (i.e., "Muslim fanatics"). At one point in the film, the Dr. Canavan character drapes a captured Muslim in a pigskin and proclaims that henceforth that all slain Muslim rebels will be buried in pig skins, thereby discouraging their "savagery" by threatening to prevent their entry into paradise.

Remember, though the examples are specific, the question is pertaining to ALL religions.